pPDF

[cartesius]

pViewer : pdf and lit viewer w/ reflow; check the screenshots.

Install: unzip in a folder on your sd/mmc card; to start select the folder in contentLister view. Should work fine with sw. 2.12.
Controls : first thing you'll see when starting the sw.

pViewer 06:
I know I said 05 was the last version but .... it's not.
So what's changed:
-- better pdf text and font handling
-- landscape mode

C.

[ericshliao]

I am trying pPDF right now. It seems GtkFileDialogue is not responding smoothly. So I can't navigate to the directory where I put my pdf files.
I put pdf files in the same directory with pPDF, but it took more than 30 seconds to list files in the directory.
Page-shifting is qute smooth and fast.

[cartesius]

Thanks for your reply!
Strange behavior; works just fine with my iLiad. I take it you tapped the dialog in order to refresh the screen..
30 secs is too much time to ask for, just to open one file after another; if you can start a (remote) terminal on your iLiad do:
export DISPLAY=:0
ppdf <filename.pdf>

C.

[herve]

Using the stylus will use much more power. Is it documented how to receive button events?

Also, as your objective is to display the document as large as possible, you could save precious space by removing this toolbar.

Have you considered implementing some fullscreen mode like in the alternative ipdf viewer, to remove the iLiad toolbar at the bottom?

It's glad to see hacking activity on the iLiad.

[cartesius]

@herve:
100% agree on the stylus comment; the final goal is to use stylus only for file/page navigation.
Full screen mode is a good idea!
What do you mean by : "Is it documented how to receive button events?"

@all : please tell me how do find the "character scaling" working?

C.

[dedo]

Originally Posted by ericshliao

I am trying pPDF right now. It seems GtkFileDialogue is not responding smoothly. So I can't navigate to the directory where I put my pdf files.
I put pdf files in the same directory with pPDF, but it took more than 30 seconds to list files in the directory.
Page-shifting is qute smooth and fast.

Same here.

[cartesius]

The second pPDF release brings some changes:
* the upper button bar is removed, its functions replaced by iLiad's buttons
* iLiad's lower toolbar should be hidden when starting the application, restored on exit (works with my unit)
* added page bar interaction
* OpenFile dialog made more responsive though still slow: tap the screen somewhere on the dialog's surface (say nearby the "Cancel" button) to refresh
* Button mappings:
- 'Up' short press : open file
- 'Up' long press : exit
- 'Flipbar next' : show next page
- 'Flipbar previous' : show previous page
- 'Confirm' (dot) short press : display document using original size (scaled to fit the screen)
- 'Previous' (up-pointed triangle) short press : increase text (25%) (percentage refers to original font size)
- 'Previous' (up-pointed triangle) long press : increase text (75%)
- 'Next' (down-pointed triangle) short press : decrease text (25%)
- 'Next' (down-pointed triangle) long press : decrease text (75%)

Install : same as before.
Enjoy!

C.

[ragar]

hello,cartesius I have version 2.12 but not work for me, I could help. thanks

[henryhu]

pPDF is very cool. It can run smoothly in my Iliad-II, even it can recognize chinese characters.

If we can use contentLister to replace its openfile dialog window, that will be terrific.

Another possible improvement:
1. the graphic in the pdf is too small after you increased the texts' size.
2. In the full screem model, could you help to remove the page indicator? So that will be the real full screem.

[ragar]

I can explain how to install the pPDF where books are kept to work.

[cartesius]

henryhu: thanks for the appreciation :-)
: If you mean using it to open files from content Lister, pPDF would open the pdf file given as parameter but you'll have to change the registry.xml file, which in turn will supersede the original ipdf viewer. For now, I "strongly" advice against it.
: If you thought about replacing the Gtk FileDialog with a 'content Lister' type interface, that is a good idea but code has to be first read then written; no time for that yet.
: 1.the graphics in the pdf file (that is bitmaps, jpegs and such) are supposed to be increased by the same percentage as the text was, limited by screen size. Try scaling some more.
: 2. the intention was always to keep the page bar not to go full screen. The thing is, removing it would give at most a marginal two extra text lines to be displayed by loosing the ability to see the current page/ jump to pages. It is of course possible to implement a hide/show feature for the bar but that would take a very precious button resource I intend to use for some other purpose.
Bottom line: the page bar is there to stay ;-)

ragar: I'm not quite sure what your problem is, but please allow a stupid question first: have you installed the developer package on Iliad?

It is good to see someone finds the time to try my sorry little application and let me know about it; thank you!

C.

[edl7878]

Thanks for ur cool software!!

I have tested it on my iliad 2nd,it is very useful !!!

After installed developer package, this cool software works very nice, and without developer package, it just show blank page.

Thanks!

[good153]

Thank you very much, Cartesius. You have done a wonderful job here. I don't have to remake every article or book pdf file in order to get clearer view. It saves lots of time and glasses. I am wondering if it is possible to make it remember the last page I have read. Thank you again.

[cartesius]

Thanks for your kind words people! U keep me motivated to continue working on this viewer...

A piece of advice: when the pdf has some background "image" one gets better results by copying the text into a text editor (keep same page size) and then export to pdf so the background is removed. There is still some work to create the new pdf but at least there is no need to "re-paginate".
Sorry I could not do better... :-(
(The trouble seems to come from the fact that the background is either an image or some image tiles; but pPdf tries to display (and scale) images oblivious to what they were used for...so it ends up to having a lot of images to display and place some text in between and this just doesn't work right.)

I have given some thought on the issue of remembering the page...it annoys me too. To be consistent with the way Iliad works, there should be an xml file next to the pdf containing the necessary details and I am not yet sure how this works... Any better (aka simpler) ideas?

C.

[hansel]

Hello Cartesius,

Nice work! Will you share the sources for pPDF? I'd like to try it, but I want to know what I install and run on my Iliad...

Originally Posted by cartesius

I have given some thought on the issue of remembering the page...it annoys me too. To be consistent with the way Iliad works, there should be an xml file next to the pdf containing the necessary details and I am not yet sure how this works... Any better (aka simpler) ideas?

Remembering the page numbers is handled by contenLister, with part of the job delegated to pageBar. contenLister creates and manages the manifest files, where the page is stored. pageBar, contenLister and the viewer are connected by sockets (ipcChannels).

If you want to dive in the sources, ctrl_start_viewer() in contenLister/control.c is a nice start
http://iliad.hpelbers.org/irexdox/co...e6d8e77b953cdf

Happy Hacking!